Dick Rowland: I dropped out of high school to take a job shining shoes in a white-owned and white-patronized shine parlor located downtown on Main Street. Shoe shines usually cost a dime in those days, but we were often tipped a nickel for each shine, and sometimes more. On a busy day, I pocketed a fair amount of money. As a teenaged African American man with few other job prospects, this was a good job.
There were no toilet facilities for blacks at the shine parlor where I worked. The owner had arranged for his African American employees to use a "Colored" restroom located, nearby, in the Drexel. To get to the washroom, located on the top floor, I rode in the building's elevator. Elevators in those days required an operator, usually a woman.
On the day the riot started, Sarah Page operated the elevator. I went to get on the elevator, and I tripped because the elevator hadn’t stopped properly at the floor. As I tried to catch my fall, I grabbed onto the arm of Sarah Page, who then screamed. A clerk from a clothing store heard the scream and saw me running out of the building. He called the police and said I attempted to rape Sarah Page. The next day I was arrested. I feared for my life because in those days, black men were lynched frequently, without trial. I did not attempt to rape Sarah Page. Later, I was acquitted when Page refused to press charges. I was cleared and all charges were dropped, but not before hundreds were killed and Greenwood was burned to the ground.
B.C. Franklin: I was one of the few African American attorneys in Greenwood, that’s what the Black section of Tulsa was called back then. I was sitting in the courtroom during a recess in a trial when I overheard some other lawyers discussing the alleged rape attempt. "I don't believe a damn word of it," one of the men said, "Why I know [Dick Rowland] and have known him a good while. That's not in him." But the white newspapers in town stirred up the town folk with a headline that read “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator.” “In 1919 alone, more than seventy-five blacks were lynched by white mobs — including more than a dozen black soldiers, some of whom were murdered while still in uniform. During the first year following the war, eleven African Americans were burned — alive — at the stake by white mobs.” [Ellwood] Certainly, there was a sense that if the law was going to be upheld so that a black man could get a fair trial, then it would be through the actions of black men, not through official means. When black soldiers returned from fighting in World War 1, they had enough of being second-class citizens after fighting for other people’s freedom. They were willing to take action. My law offices were burned to the ground during the riot. I re-opened my law offices in a tent.
C. F. Gabe: I saw the riot from beginning to end. In the beginning I attempted to turn back cars of black men who feared that Dick Rowland was going to be lynched. There were huge crowds of whites lining the streets and sidewalks near the courthouse, carrying guns and liquor bottles. As a group of black men were leaving the area, one of its members, an African-American World War I veteran who had with him an army-issue revolver, was approached by one of the white members of the mob. When the white man tried to take the gun away from the African-American man, the gun went off. That started the riot.
Later, I witnessed the killings of blacks in the streets, the lootings of stores, the burning of Black homes and businesses by white mobs. Friends came by my house and said, “The white folks is killing all of the [Black people] in town and burning all of their houses.” I stayed inside, but when they started shooting my house and “pieces of my piano began to fall,” I believed them. At that point, I was rounded up and carried to the Convention Center then the Fair Grounds for internment. I ended up being arrested. Instead of allowing us to keep our guns and protect our homes, the National Guard took our weapons and put us in internments camps for our “safety.” In the meantime, deputized whites looted our homes and stores and burned what was left. Then the National Guard took us to Greenwood to clean up the destruction to help pay for our food in the camp. I tell you, this was not right.
Sheriff Willard McCullough: I was sheriff at the time that Dick Rowland was brought to jail and charged with attempted rape. Tempers were running high with both blacks and white. I was not going to have a lynch mob do the same thing to Dick Rowland on my watch. I put Rowland in the hands of deputies in a secure part of the building. I told them to take the elevator to the top floor and disable it. I also told the officers to shoot anyone, including me, who came to get Rowland. The crowds gathered.
I asked Deputy Barney Cleaver, a black officer, and C.F. Gabe to get the blacks to go home. I tried to get the whites to disperse as well. Before the night was ended, there were about 2000 white men gathered at the courthouse. Then a bunch of them tried to get guns at the National Guard Armory. When they didn’t get guns there, they broke into Bardon’s Sporting Goods and took guns and ammunition. Once the first shot was fired, all hell broke lose. People ask what happened. Here’s what I know. Some white man tried to disarm a black man and the gun went off during that scuffle. Later that night I saw men who Police Commissioner Adkinson deputized burning and looting in Greenwood, the black section of Tulsa. Those men told me they were “hunting negroes.” They went all over South Tulsa, taking black servants from their white employees. Everyone had guns and the police seemed to be behind it.
Police Commissioner Jim Adkison:
Things were out of control in Greenwood. It was like a war zone. People were shooting each other. There was looting and burning. We had people storming the National Guard Armory. We were outnumbered. Police Chief Gustafson called in his entire force – around 65 men – and Gustafson and I began commissioning “special deputies” – perhaps as many as 400 of them to help restore order. Remember, there were thousands of people running the streets that night — May 31, 1921. Of course, in retrospect, I should have been more careful about the selection of men we deputized and armed. But it was a very tense situation. We never told anyone to kill black people or torch their homes. Our instructions were to disarm people and to absolutely prevent looting and burning.
O.W. Gurley: I was one of the wealthiest Greenwood residents. I owned the Gurley Hotel. I tried my hardest to defuse the situation with Dick Rowland and the whites coming to lynch him. I was known for fighting crime in our section of town, which was known as Black Wall Street. I talked with the Sheriff McCullough and I believed him when he said that Dick Rowland was safe and he wasn’t going to let anyone lynch Dick. I told the folks back in Greenwood that there wasn’t going to be a lynching, but they called me a liar and threatened to shoot my heart out. The African American veterans came back from France with ideas about equality. And Tulsa wanted to return to the way things were before the war. They figured they fought for equality in France, and they weren’t coming home after risking their lives and be insulted in their own homes. I’ll tell you, I barely made it out of the riot alive. I was shot at, my hotel was burned, residents from my hotel were rounded up and interned.
Mary Parrish: I was a teacher in Greenwood before the riots. Shortly after the riots, I published a book of my recollections called Events of the Tulsa Disaster. When I looked out the window of my apartment building on the morning of June 1, 1921, I saw armed white men gathering near the granary. I left the building, running north on Greenwood Avenue, away from the gunfire, “amidst showers of bullets from the machine gun located in the granary and from men who were quickly surrounding our district.” I saw the airplanes coming in. “There was a great shadow in the sky and upon a second look we discerned that this cloud was caused by fast approaching aeroplanes. It then dawned upon us that the enemy had organized in the night was invading our district the same as the Germans invaded France and Belgium.” The National Guard might say they came in to protect the citizens of Greenwood, but by disarming the Black men and not disarming the white men, they allowed the destruction — the looting and burning — of our community to happen.
Thelma Booker: The National Guard came knocking on our door and told us we had to leave our homes. They said it wasn’t safe and they were going to protect us. We didn’t feel to comfortable about that. Then they marched us through the white area of Tulsa, made us raise our hands in the air as we walked through as if we were going to attack someone with our house slippers. First, we were taken to the Convention Center, then to the ball field, and finally to the Fairgrounds, like we were prize cattle. You know, they even went and rounded up black folks who worked as domestics in white people’s homes. Oh sure, they fed us and gave us medical attention. And while our homes and businesses were looted and burned behind us, they made us stay until a white person came and vouched for us. Anyone who was vouched for received a card. Anyone without a card on the streets could be arrested. Of course, we had to pay for our food and all while we were being “protected.” We were sent out to clean up the city. We were paid standard laborers’ wages. It was by no means an easy existence, but some whites soon complained that we were being “spoiled” at the fairgrounds and by the attention given them by the Red Cross and other charitable organizations.
Green E. Smith: I shouldn’t have even been at the Tulsa Race Riot. I lived in Muskogee and I was just in town for a few days to put a cooling system in the Dreamland Theater in Greenwood. I went to the Dreamland at about 5 in the morning. I wanted to get the system installed and catch a train back to Muskogee. I heard shooting and when I looked outside, it looked like the world was coming to end with bullets. I stayed where I was. Around 8 in the morning, it seemed like things had slowed down a bit. But at 9:30 a gang came down the street knocking on the doors and setting the buildings afire. They were policemen. People keep asking, “How did you know they were policemen?” I knew because they wore badges that said “special police.” I watched them go into one building after another and when they came out the buildings were smoking. When I left the building, I was arrested because they were arresting or rounding up all of the blacks. I did finally get back to Muskogee, but not before I witnessed the destruction of Greenwood. One young woman was half-lying, half sitting, her eyes were filled with misery. I asked her if she was sick. “No, I ain’t sick. I ain’t got nothin’.” That’s all she said, but she was right. These people worked their whole lives to buy a home a piano, a dining room table, and it one night, it was snatched away.
Colonel Rooney: I was in charge of the local units of the National Guard. I first knew there was trouble when a group of white men tried to break into the Armory to take guns. We held them back. When I did hear that the National Guard needed to move in to Greenwood, I had planned to put a line of troops around the town, but I didn’t have enough men to protect the line. Instead, I ordered my men to start gathering up Greenwood residents and taking them to internment centers. We figured if they were gathered together, they could more easily be protected against the mobs sweeping through Greenwood. Some Greenwood residents did not want to give up their guns, so there were skirmishes. We certainly didn’t anticipate that looters would come in and burn their homes.
Judge Oliphant: I was 71 at the time of the riot. I owned rental property in the black section of town called Greewood. I left my part of town and went over to Greewood when I heard about the riot. I called the police department about 8 in the morning to ask for help in protecting my property. Then four uniformed officers and deputies came. Instead of protecting property, “[t]hey were the chief fellows starting fires.” I saw Dr. A.J. Jackson, one of the best surgeons in the country, come out of his home with his hands in the air, saying, “Here I am. I want to go with you.” Jackson was surrendering to the officers. Two shot him, and he bled to death. Then I watched them throw gas and oil on Dr. Jackson’s house. The scene of destruction was unreal:
They were scattered around there, quite a large number of people looting the houses and taking out everything….Some were singing, some were playing pianos that were taken out of the buildings, some were running victrolas, some were dancing a jig and just having a rollicking easy good time in a business which they thought they were doing that [which] was upright (Brophy 57)
There were men, women, and children just going into the homes of blacks who the National Guard had rounded up and taken to the Fairgrounds. Just don’t seem decent to me. 1256 homes were destroyed in that riot.
Walter White: The NAACP sent me into Tulsa see what was happening. There were thousands of whites gathered at the jailhouse. Some had left to get guns from the National Guard Armory. Others broke into a sporting good store. The black veterans arrived armed as well, but they were turned back. When I saw Police Chief John Gustafson handing out special deputy commissions. I volunteered shortly after I arrived in town. Because I am very light complexioned, I was given one of these special deputy commissions. Police Chief John Gustafson told me, "Now you can go out and shoot any N___ you see," I was told, "and the law'll be behind you." I spent a tense night riding about the city in the company of five members of the Ku Klux Klan. I wrote an article for The Nation Magazine about that June night in 1921.
Mrs. Jackson: A mob attacked my home and killed my husband on the night of June 1, 1921. My husband was a surgeon, a black surgeon, who was respected by blacks and whites alike for his skills. My husband and I fought off the mob who attacked our house. An officer of the home guards who knew my husband came up to the house and assured him that if he would surrender he would be protected. This my husband did. The officer sent him under guard to Convention Hall, where black people were being placed for protection. En route to the hall, disarmed, Dr. Jackson was shot and killed in cold blood. The officer who had assured Dr. Jackson of protection stated to me, “Dr. Jackson was an able, clean-cut man. He did only what any red-blooded man would have done under similar circumstances in defending his home. Dr. Jackson was murdered by white ruffians.
John Hope Franklin: I was a child at the time of the riot. I later became a noted historian. My book, From Slavery to Freedom, sold over 3.5 million copies. My father, B.C. Franklin, was in Greenwood at the time. We were at home in an all-black town nearby, and we didn’t know what happened to Father. By the time the Riot had ended, the damage was staggering. As many as 300 African-Americans had been killed by city and state officials, and deputized government agents. Every church, school, and business in Greenwood had been set on fire. Thirty- five square blocks of property was laid waste in ashes, more than 1,200 houses were destroyed, and nearly 10,000 African- Americans were rendered homeless. After the Riot, Greenwood’s residents were forced to live “in grossly inferior dwellings.”
“One of the most profound effects [of the Riot] in the long run was what it did to the city. It robbed it of its honesty, and it sentenced it to 75 years of denial…The term ‘riot’ itself seems somehow inadequate to describe the violence that took place. For some, what occurred in Tulsa on May 31 and June 1, 1921 was a massacre, a pogrom, or, to use a more modern term, an ethnic cleansing. For others, it was nothing short of a race war. But whatever terms is used, one thing is certain: when it was all over, Tulsa's African American district had been turned into a scorched wasteland of vacant lots, crumbling storefronts, burned churches, and blackened, leafless trees.”